


let us shine (for what it’s worth)

by mevies



Category: Descendants (2015), Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, alright so this is my very first time writing for this fandom, and side jaylos and ben/uma bc why not, characters are a bit ooc i guess but it is an au.... or maybe im just getting used to them lol, hopefully this isnt terrible tho... there’s uma/mal bc hell yeah!, this turned out into a soulmate au but not really but if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 05:58:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12500364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mevies/pseuds/mevies
Summary: It all starts when Mal is nine.





	let us shine (for what it’s worth)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the first time ever writing for this fandom, I’ve made my way through a bunch of fics and ended up writing this at like 3AM on my phone, so forgive me if it’s trash, I’ll try harder next time haha 
> 
> I don’t know why but this ended up being a soulmate au? Kinda? If you squint? But anyway. I loved Uma & Mal’s dynamic in the movie and decided to make them besties here (and probably will keep on doing that because I love them). 
> 
> So, yeah. Hope you enjoy this one!

When Mal meets Uma, they’re nine years old.

Uma has just moved to the house next door, and she’s a small girl with beautiful brown eyes and beautiful, shiny and curly dark hair that seemingly dances when she moves, and Mal wants to be her friend immediately. But she doesn’t really know how to approach the girl, doesn’t know what she should say, so she just settles to watching from her bedroom window as the other girl runs around her backyard, waving a wooden sword everywhere at the nothing, before she seemingly gets stabbed by no one and clutches at her chest where Mal knows her heart is, and flops backwards until she’s at the tip of the pool. Mal wants to yell out and warn her, but it’s too late and she’d feel really embarrassed if the girl figured out she was watching, and the girl loses her balance and falls straight in the pool, making a loud splash sound and screaming out in surprise.

Mal giggles a little, and then stops when she hears a woman yelling at the girl and the girl’s once happy face falls into a frown and then the girl nods, her tiny hands helping her inch up and out of the pool. She grabs her wooden sword and walks out of Mal’s view and Mal feels a little sad.

It’s not until a month later that Mal feels brave enough to talk to the girl. She’s sitting in her room, coloring away when she hears it.

The girl’s mom from the house next to hers yelling at her, and Mal doesn’t wanna overhear because she hates hearing other people’s moms yell at their kids (she has enough of it already from her own mom) but the voice is too loud and mean and she hears the girl’s loud cries for her mom to stop whatever she was doing. Mal feels tears starting to form in her own eyes and she quickly rubs it away. There’s a silence, and then Mal hears the sound of a front door opening and then closing and she assumes the girl has left the house. She does that too, sometimes.

So she pauses her coloring, getting out of her chair and moving to put her shoes on quickly, and then she runs down the stairs, thankful that her mom was out today so she didn’t have to hear to her mom yell at her to not leave the house, when she opens her front door and sure enough, there she is.

The girl’s sitting on her own front porch, her little hands propping her head up, her head resting on her chin as she sniffles quietly, and Mal feels her heart ache a little. She silently approaches her, not wanting to disturb her, and when she’s about five feet away from the girl, she cleans her throat, making the girl look up with teary eyes.

“Hi,” Mal greets shyly, not really used to talking to other kids. The girl sniffles again, and Mal feels a little awkward under her gaze.

A beat passes, and then: “Hi.”

Mal smiles, hoping she looks friendly enough. She thinks she must’ve, because the girl stops her sniffling and brushes some tears away from her face. “I’m Mal.” She introduces herself, giving her hand out for the girl to shake, as she’s seen people do in movies all the time.

The girl eyes her hand for a second before she takes it in a firm grip, and shakes it once. “I’m Uma.” She says, her voice small.

“You have a pretty name.” Mal compliments, because she thinks so, and also because she wants to make the girl feel better. Uma smiles a little at that, and Mal feels accomplished.

“You too, Mal.” Uma says, and brings her hand back from the grip she had with the girl. She grips her two hands together and looks at Mal expectantly, as if waiting for her to conduct the conversation.

Mal gapes for a second before she looks up at the door behind Uma and then back at her. “Are you okay?” She asks, because she really wants to know, and Uma’s smile falls from her face and Mal kind of regrets asking.

(Later in life, though, they look back at that moment and feel nothing but warmth and fondness over three little words forming the simplest but most meaningful question for the both of them.)

“Yeah.” Uma says, and they both know it’s a lie. “Just... mom. You know how it is.” She says, knowing, and Mal feels a little surprised, but maybe she shouldn’t, because her mom is loud too.

She nods then, and sits down beside Uma. There isn’t really much to say, because what is there to say? How can two nine year olds offer the other wise words of comfort over something they don’t understand, or can’t change? So Mal just settles for a hand on Uma’s shoulder and a squeeze and a small, “I’m sorry.”, because she is. She knows what Uma is feeling, knows how it hurts, and wishes she didn’t.

Uma looks at her like she wishes the same.

-

When Uma and Mal meet Jay, they’re twelve.

Jay and his dad moved to the house across the street, and the girls were sitting down under a tree as the black car pulled up on the front of the white house across from them and from inside a man that looked to be reaching his fourties got out of it, followed quickly by a slim boy with tanned brown skin and a long brown hair, adorned in beat up jeans and a black tee. The dad barked something to the boy, and Uma and Mal watched with curious eyes as the boy sighed and dragged his converse clad feet over the pavement towards the trunk of the car, opening it swiftly and pulling out a bunch of boxes and bags one by one, his face strained in visible pain at the obvious weight of everything. Mal swiped her eyes from the boy to the door of the house, no sign of the dad anywhere and she frowned, watching as the boy slowly made his way towards the house, trying to balance two heavy boxes in his arms.

She frowned, and looked to her right, to Uma, who had been watching the scene with the same expression. They looked at each other then, with knowing expressions, and seemingly agreed silently with each other.

They stood up, quickly crossing the street towards the black car and the struggling boy and called his attention.

“Do you need any help?” Mal asked, because she’s always the first one to talk. The boy gives them both a surprised smile and nods, looking relieved, and thanks them with a small voice, followed by an amused laugh as he watches the two girls struggle to lift a box together.

Later that day, the three of them sit under the tree that stands proudly in front of Mal’s house, and Jay tells them about his dad.

It’s clear as the day that the boy is fighting back tears, and Mal and Uma look at each other before Mal squeezes his shoulder like she did a few years ago with Uma, just a few meters away from where they sit now, and Uma repeats the same words that Mal said to her.

“I’m sorry.”

Jay gives them a smile that tells them he’s wanted to hear those words for as long as he can remember, and Uma and Mal smile back.

They understand, and that’s enough.

-

Mal, Uma and Jay are sixteen when Carlos waltzes into Jay’s life and consequently, the girls’ lives as well.

Jay has a job at the local pet store. It’s not necessarily ideal, but the three of them usually spend a lot of time there since they were twelve, always fascinated by the small animals they had there. The owners of the shop were an elderly couple that had warm smiles and always treated them kindly, something none of them were too accustomed coming from adult figures.

As they grew up, Jay had expressed interest in working at the store, noticing that the two owners were getting too old to restock the shelves and carry the heavy boxes and figuring it’d be nice to get paid for staying in a place he liked so much. Uma and Mal were quick to support his decision, knowing well enough that any excuse to stay out of his home was incredibly tempting to Jay as it was for the two of them.

So, Jay worked at the pet store, and one day Carlos had walked in, a purple and blue bruise on his eye, looking lost and like that store was the first place he’d seen and just mindlessly had walked in, and Jay had quickly recognized that need to get away from something screaming loudly in the other boy’s brown eyes.

He had sparked up a conversation with him, then, and later when Uma and Mal had swung by at the end of his shift to ask if Jay wanted to grab something to eat, Jay had introduced Carlos to his two best friends and he’d watched as the girls studied him for a second before asking him if he liked burgers as much as Jay did.

Carlos had smiled, and nodded.

It was later that day, and the small group of four were hanging out in the old diner just at the outskirts of town that Uma had discovered about a year ago, on a night she had a big fight with her mom and didn’t feel like staying home or around anyone, and had just started walking and walking and walking until she had no idea where she was and how to go back, and coming inside the diner, only to be greeted by a friendly guy with brown hair and the sweetest smile Uma’s ever seen and the boy, Ben, as she’d read on his name plaque, had noticed she didn’t look so well and ever charming and kind, he’d offered a burger on the house.

Uma and Ben were kind of a thing but not really, almost there, and Mal had grown tired of asking her best friend what was taking them so damn long. Whenever they’d go to Belle’s, the diner that had been named after the owner, coincidentally Ben’s mother, Uma and Ben would send each other glances and exchange sweet and flirty words, and Mal wanted to scream at how slow and dumb the both of them were being.

But she kind of understands, because up until a few months ago, she knows that Uma has never thought of herself as being capable of having a relationship, of having someone care and be interested in her. Of someone looking at her as if she was more than damaged goods, as if she was worthy of someone’s attention. And Mal can relate, but as always, she wishes that wasn’t the case with Uma. She hates that they understand each other so well as much as she loves it, because while it’s good to have people who understand, it also breaks her heart to know her best friends, the people who make her life brighter and bearable, feel the same way as she does.

But Ben, he’s so kind and sweet and he has a great family and good intentions and the sweetest smile Mal’s ever seen, and he looks at Uma like she’s the most beautiful and interesting girl he’s ever met, and they’re so different it’s glaring. The contrasts between them are ridiculously loud, and that’s what makes it all so perfect.

They’re at the diner, Uma and Mal striking up a conversation with Ben at the counter as they watch him work, Uma and Ben exchanging flirty words that make Mal roll her eyes and smile fondly and look around the empty diner. It’s about 10pm, but the place is open til midnight, and they usually stay as late as they can on Friday nights. Her green eyes fall on the table they’d been occupying just a few minutes ago, where Jay and his new friend, Carlos, remain seated, and Mal lets out a small, inaudible gasp when she realizes Carlos look at Jay like Ben looks at Uma.

She doesn’t miss the way that Jay looks back at him the same.

-

Mal is seventeen when she meets Evie.

It’s been an annoying month, she must admit. Time has passed, months came and went, and suddenly Jay and Carlos were dating, and Uma and Ben were too.

Mal was the only single friend of the group, and it was annoying.

Annoying because Jay and Carlos were absolutely inseparable, and it didn’t help that at school they acted the same way as they did everywhere. Mal doesn’t know how they can stand to look at each other in silence for so long like that, but they’re happy and kinda absurdly adorable so she’s ecstatic for them. Ben doesn’t frequent the same school as they do, so for the most part nothing’s changed between Mal and Uma.

Except for the days Mal wants to hang out but Uma can’t, because she’s hanging out with her boyfriend. And it’s totally fine, because Mal’s happy for her, and she likes Ben, too, and she’s always rooted for them. So it’s no hard feelings at all.

Except that it’s kinda lonely now, in a way, and she feels a little ridiculous for feeling like that, but it’s not like she can help it. So she just ignores that feeling for a month, until.

Until this girl from God knows where moves to their town, and she has a long blue hair and brown eyes and the most beautiful smile that Mal’s ever seen. She sees her for the first time while she’s leaving the girl’s bathroom and the girl is by her locker, and Mal just stands there for a minute, taking in the girl’s blue curls, and her beautiful lips painted in red, and the girl’s long eyelashes and her blue leather jacket and there’s so much blue, blue, blue, and Mal thinks that might be her new favorite color.

She learns that the girl’s name is Evie, because Carlos has already met her, and he says Evie is funny and sweet and really likes fashion and his eyes are sparkling because he’s found someone he can rave about it with.

She thinks about Evie a lot, after that. Imagines what her voice sounds like, and what’s her favorite everything. She’s never felt like that about anyone, and Uma comments that after she finds Mal doodling brown eyes and red lips.

It’s another week before she talks to Evie for the first time, and she’s a mumbling mess and she sounds and looks nothing like the big bad Mal, the most badass girl this school’s ever seen - Uma argues Mal’s second best to her, but still - and Evie comments on that with an amused giggle.

Mal flushes then, and next thing she knows she’s asked Evie if she wanted to go to Belle’s with her, which Evie had readily accepted.

Ben serves them two pieces of pie, Evie’s apple and Mal’s strawberry, to which Ben gives her a small wink because he knows how much she loves her strawberry, and Evie questions how she knows this place and how she knows the boy, all the while making impressed faces at the food in front of her.

So Mal tells her everything, since the start. From since she was nine and how she watched Uma fall in the pool to being sixteen and watching her fall for Ben, who she was pretty sure was her soulmate. To being twelve and seeing Jay carry all those boxes and now, years later, seeing him carry his boyfriend’s heart in his hands with the utmost care in the world, and Evie watches and listens with fascination, half in love with the way Mal tells things and head over heels for Mal herself.

And then Mal pauses, catching a glint in Evie’s brown eyes, and she has to ask: “Do you believe in soulmates?”

Evie pauses too, surprised by the question. She considers it for a minute and then she looks at Mal, really looks at her. From the purple in her hair to her pale white complexion to the slight blush in her cheeks to her penetrating green eyes to her beautiful lips - and Mal doesn’t need an answer anymore. Doesn’t need Evie to tell her anything, because her eyes had said everything her mouth hasn’t.

She’s watched Ben and Uma look at each other for long enough, watched Jay and Carlos. She’s seen it all, she’s seen the signs, the glint and - she sees it in Evie’s eyes too. And everything that Uma’s described to her one night, while both of them lied in Mal’s bed, looking up at the dark ceiling of the girl’s room, everything Uma’s told her she felt when she found Ben - what you feel when you find the one -, everything she’s described, from the butterflies in her stomach and warmth running wild through her veins, to her heart beating fast but still being so comfortable, so at ease - everything Uma described... Mal feels it now.

Evie is looking at her like she can relate, like she understands, like she knows. And this time, Mal won’t apologize, won’t wish that the other person sitting in front of her didn’t know what she was feeling - because for the first time, Mal feels like she’ll be okay, and suddenly she understands why Uma and Jay look lighter than ever. Because looking at Evie, she feels like she can conquer anything, can do anything, can be anything.

And Evie’s looking back at her like she feels the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Have a nice day/night, hope you enjoyed this! Stay safe, comments are always welcome! xo


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